Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Michael Gove]

Talking of brighter futures—

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[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I think it is the case that the thinker who coined the phrase “mutant algorithm” is my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien), who is now an Under-Secretary in the Department and working with me and the Minister for Housing to address precisely the concerns that he outlined. We need to build more homes, but we also need to ensure that how we calculate need and how plans are adopted is much more sensible and sensitive.

[Theresa Villiers]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

Talking about sensible and sensitive, I give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Theresa Villiers]

The Secretary of State is saying much that suggests that he believes we should rein in the Planning Inspectorate and give back to local authorities more control over planning, but that is not in the Bill. So is he today at the Dispatch Box saying that he will table amendments to the Bill along those lines?

[Michael Gove]

I will say two things. First, I hope to work constructively with Back Benchers across all parties to ensure that the Bill is strengthened. I have never seen a piece of legislation introduced to the House that could not be improved in Committee, and I know that this Bill will be. I also look forward to good ideas, if they come, from Opposition Front Benchers.

Secondly, it is also the case that the publication of a revised NPPF and NPPF prospectus will help us to appreciate what the nature of the further amendments should be. As my right hon. Friend knows, in one or two areas of the Bill, there are placeholders, where more work requires to be done. I am frank about that and I look forward to working with her.

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[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

There is much in the Bill that I welcome, such as digitising the planning system, tackling land banking and enforcing planning controls. I also welcome the important omission of the growth zone proposals that were in the “Planning for the Future” White Paper. These zones would have removed local input on what is built in areas designated for growth. I campaigned strongly against them, and I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for killing them off.

There are other measures that urgently need to be added to the Bill because, as it stands, it does not curb the powers of the Planning Inspectorate, it has no new protections for greenfield sites and it does not reduce or disapply housing targets. Excessive housing targets are creating ever greater pressure on elected local councillors to approve applications that amount to overdevelopment. Where committees turn down such proposals, they are at risk of being overturned on appeal.

Targets remain very high, even after the Government’s climbdown on the so-called “mutant algorithm.” The Bill’s focus on better design does not resolve these issues. Loss of precious green space remains problematic even if what is built on it is well designed. A block of flats is still a block of flats no matter how tastefully it is presented.

In one respect, as we have heard already today, the Bill worsens the problems that Back-Bench colleagues and I have been highlighting about the erosion of local control over planning. Clauses 83 and 84 empower the Secretary of State to set development management policies at a national level, which will override local plans.

[Munira Wilson]

rose—

[Theresa Villiers]

I am sorry, but I am unable to give way.

This radical change departs from a long-established planning principle that primacy should be given to elected councillors making decisions in accordance with their local plan. Management policies of this kind are at the heart of almost all planning decisions, covering matters as crucial as character, tall buildings, affordable housing and protection of open spaces. Removing from councils the power to set these management policies will severely weaken democratic control of the planning process. Development management policies form a bulwark of defence against inappropriate development. Centralised control would almost inevitably force councils to approve many applications that they would previously have rejected. These clauses amount to an aggressive power grab by the centre, and I hope they will be dropped.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Would a community right of appeal not be a good addition to what my right hon. Friend is setting out in terms of other types of rights?

[Theresa Villiers]

Yes, I think we should seriously consider that.

The Secretary of State seems to accept the need for some rebalancing between councils and the Planning Inspectorate. The policy paper published with the Bill proposes to remove the requirement for authorities to have a rolling five-year land supply for housing, where their plan is up to date. That could be helpful, but it is impossible to say without more detail. The proposal is not in the Bill and even if implemented, it probably would not apply to areas already in the process of updating their new plan. So any impact probably would not be felt for several years, by which time many greenfield sites could have been lost.

I therefore appeal to Ministers to seize the opportunity presented in this Bill to restore the powers of locally elected councillors to determine what is built in their neighbourhood, by scrapping the mandatory housing targets which have been undermining those powers. We must stop these targets, and the five-year land supply obligations they impose, from being used as a weapon by predatory developers to inflict overdevelopment on unwilling communities. Once they go under the bulldozer, our green fields are lost forever. Once suburban areas such as Chipping Barnet are built over by high-rise blocks of flats, their character is profoundly changed forever. Please let this Government not be the ones who permanently blight our environment with overdevelopment. Please let us amend and strengthen the Bill so that we clip the wings of an overmighty Planning Inspectorate, restore the primacy of local decision making in planning and safeguard the places in which our constituents live.